Call to ex­plain can­celled con­fer­ence

IFP LEADER Man­go­suthu Buthelezi lashed out at the ANC yes­ter­day for “ob­struct­ing rec­on­cil­i­a­tion” and “play­ing games” with the coun­try’s sta­bil­ity.

Buthelezi made the state­ments dur­ing a press brief­ing at the IFP head­quar­ters in Dur­ban af­ter the metro’s third so­cial co­he­sion con­fer­ence at which he was sup­posed to give the key­note ad­dress but was abruptly can­celled with­out any rea­son.

Us­ing ex­am­ples of his­tor­i­cal in­ci­dents to draw what he called “a clear pat­tern” of the ANC scup­per­ing his at­tempts at rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, Buthelezi said there were some in the rul­ing party who gen­uinely be­lieved in so­cial co­he­sion and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, “But there is another group, who hold an enor­mous amount of power, who are de­ter­mined never to see old wounds healed.

“I am sick of games be­ing played with our na­tion’s unity, sta­bil­ity, pros­per­ity and hope,” he said.

It was im­por­tant to know how an “enor­mous” waste of money could be jus­ti­fied, he said, and peo­ple de­served to know “who pulled the strings to bring down the cur­tain when they heard that Buthelezi was go­ing to speak”.

“There will un­doubt­edly be some ex­cuse peddled for why this con­fer­ence couldn’t take place. The fact is it was can­celled with less than 12 hours’ no­tice; the di­rec­tive came from above the city coun­cil, and no rea­sons were given,” he said.

In a press re­lease sent out just af­ter 11am yes­ter­day, the eThek­wini Mu­nic­i­pal­ity said the con­fer­ence had been post­poned un­til fur­ther no­tice.

It was set to start at 8am yes­ter­day, with 500 par­tic­i­pants ex­pected. One of the other big­name speak­ers would have been Danny Jor­daan, pres­i­dent of the SA Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion.

ANC KwaZulu-Natal spokesper­son Mdu­miseni Ntuli could not be reached for com­ment. – ANA